This invention relates generally to the art of surgical suturing, and more particularly, to the art of anastomosing tubularly shaped body ducts, one to another, especially blood vessels.
When performing heart surgery, and other surgery involving blood vessels and other body ducts, the job of anastomosing one vessel to another is normally laboriously performed by stitching edges of blood vessel openings together. This procedure, because the blood vessels are so small and delicate, often takes hours to complete. Although numerous devices have been suggested for expediting this procedure, it is not thought that any of these devices have achieved widespread usage. Many of these devices employ staples, clamps and the like which some surgeons do not like to leave in a body. Many surgeons believe that conventional thread-type, handmade, sutures are preferable over staples and the like.
It is an object of this invention to provide an assembly and method for performing body vessel anastomosis in a relatively rapid manner, thereby reducing the time required for such procedures.
It is a further object of this invention to provide such an assembly which is relatively easy and inexpensive to manufacture, but yet which is straightforward and easy to use.
Still another object of the invention is to provide such an assembly and method for performing body vessel anastomsis which produces standard, thread-type, sutures of a type produced by "hand sewing".